British director Johannes Roberts is re-teaming with production and finance outfit The Fyzz Facility for coming-of-age drama Hearts, an adaptation of Stephen King’s critically acclaimed novella Hearts in Atlantis.
Set in 1966, Hearts is a coming-of-age story about a group of college boys and their first time away from home, their obsession and self-destruction, and what it means to be an adult in a world where, in the face of a devastating war no one understands, adults can no longer be trusted.
The author has given his personal approval to the adaptation, which is based on his own time in college.
Roberts adapted the story with his rwriting partner, Ernest Riera. The pair has recently come off of horror film “The Other Side Of The Door,” starring Sarah Wayne Callies and released by Fox, and shark thriller “47 Meters Down,” starring Mandy Moore, which marked Roberts’ first collaboration with The Fyzz Facility.
“47 Meters Down”is scheduled for U.S. release through Entertainment Freestyle in 2017.
“As a teenager, discovering Stephen King’s books and their cinematic counterparts was what led me to want to become a filmmaker,” says Roberts. “The story ‘Hearts in Atlantis’ is my favorite piece of King’s writing. Turning this story into a movie had been a lifelong dream.”
The story centers on a group of poor freshmen, surviving off scholarships and aid packages, who become obsessed with the highly addictive card game Hearts and find their world starts to slowly unravel. Their grades begin to fall, and one by one they flunk out at a time when life outside college meant the draft and Vietnam.
